Tz'utujil - Sociopolitical Organization

Political Organization.
As has been the case in virtually all the region's Mayan
communities, until recently political organization in Tz'utujil
towns revolved around the civil-religious hierarchy known as the
cofradía
system. Participants in that system ascended a hierarchical ladder of
alternating political and religious offices, eventually attaining the
status of
principal
(elder). Males and females participated in the system. To weaken the
autonomy of rural communities, in 1945 the Guatemalan government
declared it illegal for cofradías to have a civil component. That
action, combined with religious competition from Protestants and
orthodox Catholics alike has gradually eroded the cofradía
system. In all Tz'utujil towns, the primary locus of community
political organization is now democratic politics, with the office of
mayor (alcalde) being the highest elected office in a given
municipalidade.

Social Control.
Social control in Tz'utujil towns is exercised through formal
and informal means. On the one hand, gossip, envy, and ridicule exert
considerable potency in routinizing Tz'utujil behavior. On the
other hand, all of the towns are subject to the laws and authority of
the Guatemalan state. That reality is underscored by the
country's militarization owing to its civil war.

Conflict.
Certainly the most grievous modern conflict in the Tz'utujil
area stems from the civil war and has pitted the forces of the state
against guerrillas of the Organization of People in Arms (ORPA), with
most of the population caught in the middle. In addition, resentment
over earlier land conflicts between San Juan and San Pedro continues to
fester. Several Tz'utujil towns are rent by bitter internal
religious divisions, particularly between Catholics and Protestants, but
also between cofradía members and Catholics who do not belong to
cofradías and between members of different Protestant sects.